A Google Plus Business Strategy in 5 Minutes a Week

The quickest route to online ruin is jumping into something too deeply — or not jumping in at all.

Sticking one toe in the water is a great way to find out if it is too hot, too cold or just right.

A Google Plus business strategy is a good example of this thinking. The search giant’s social media project has had a rocky history with the company.

Although Google says it is heavily used, outside sources including this site have found that it doesn’t deliver results in the same way as Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

But that doesn’t mean a publisher or small business shouldn’t use Google Plus. If anything, Google Plus should be part of any social media effort because of its potential. It just should be used carefully.

Why Test the Waters?

The online environment is littered with failed initiatives and failed companies that didn’t test the water before they jumped.

Google Plus belongs in that category even though the company’s massive social media commitment launched back in 2011.

The fact that the effort failed to produce great results led to a Google vice president for social recently “leaving” the company. It added credibility to headlines that say things such as “Google+ is Walking Dead.”

That seems a little extreme. Even if G+ has struggled to find an audience as large and loyal as Facebook’s, there are some advantages for a business to work with what is now the second largest social network on the planet after Facebook.

But again, the size of the network doesn’t matter. What it produces for a small business does. A G+ business strategy can require only five minutes a week.

Google Plus Advantages

A G+ page is like a Facebook page. It provides many of the same benefits although with a smaller reach than Facebook. While Facebook emphasizes interaction among friends and followers, G+ emphasizes “communities” and “collections”.

These two major concepts have several advantages. They:

Increases brand or product awareness within the large G+ communities.

Generates clicks from the page to the core Website.

Organize postings into highly targeted mini blogs.

Develops a loyal audience that will more likely read postings on the page.

The plain truth is that it will not reach as many people, generate as many clicks or attract as many followers as a Facebook page. But it does have one major advantage over Facebook.

Some experts believe that having an active G+ page increases a site’s presence in Google search rankings.

On the left side, click on Home and then Pages. Look for a blue Get Your Page button, click on it and follow the instructions. Look for the option that allows you to link to your business Website and social accounts.

The entire process should take no more than five minutes. Your business will have a G+ page.

It is of course a good idea to post something on the page and do it on a regular basis. If someone comes to the page and finds nothing there, or it is out of date, they won’t have any reason to follow it, come back to it and interact with it.

Likewise, interacting with other people, pages, posts or communities will attract their attention to your page and increase the chances of getting visitors or followers.

It Takes Only 5 Minutes a Week

It really does take only five minutes a week or even less to build and maintain a Google Plus account.

Logging into the Google account and posting a few sentences on the page takes only a minute. Entering a search term at the top and posting a comment or clicking on the +1 button on another page takes only a minute.

Taking these steps consistently once a week (schedule a calendar reminder so that it doesn’t become a forgotten task) will not produce huge results in the short term. It almost certainly will product results in the long run that will grow the company’s social media presence in incremental steps.

The incremental steps may be small steps. But in the present highly competitive environment, every small step in the right direction moves a business toward a future of staying in business.